1 SCIENTIFIC REPORTS | 7: 12703 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-12708-6 www.nature.com/scientificreports Optimization of Glucose Powered Biofuel Cell Anode Developed by Polyaniline-Silver as Electron Transfer Enhancer and Ferritin as Biocompatible Redox Mediator Sufa ul Haque 1 , Inamuddin 2,3 , Abu Nasar 1 , B. Rajender 1 , Anish Khan 2,3 , Abdullah M. Asiri 2,3 & Ghulam Md Ashraf 4 Polyaniline-silver (PANI-Ag)/ferritin (Frt)/glucose oxidase (GOx) biocompatible anode was utilized for creating power from glucose. The synthesized nanocomposite was investigated by EIS (Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy), XRD (X-ray difraction), FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), SEM (Scanning electron microscopy), CV (Cyclic voltammetry), and LSV (Linear sweep voltammetry) to know the morphology, crystallinity and electrochemical behaviour of the nanocomposite. The electroactive support (PANI-Ag) was utilized for the immobilization of the enzyme (GOx) and a biocompatible mediator (Frt) to enhance the electrical signals. The electrochemical estimations of the manufactured bioanode were done by utilizing cyclic voltammetry (CV) and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV). The current density obtained by the PANI-Ag/Frt/GOx bioanode was observed to be 25.40 ± 2 mA cm -2 at 40 mM of glucose concentration at a scan rate of 100 mVs -1 . Te global energy demand is increasing every year. Tough the petroleum products are presently meeting much of this demand, the problem is its sustained supply and pollution which are serving as the main impetus for research into alternative renewable energy technologies 1,2 . Biofuel cell (BFC) utilizes biological moieties such as enzymes and microbes to directly generate power from the chemical energy contained within various biological matters 3 . Enzymatic biofuel cell (EFC) utilizes enzyme to catalyze the electron fow from substrate like glucose rather than precious metal, in short, they run on sugar 4 . However, the EFCs are more even emerging technology and yet to be widely used. In a recent study, researchers fnd that the EFC can run on the glucose of the body and the results are really surprising 5 . Tey can be incredibly used for any kind of biological implant as they run on glucose and enzymes already present in the body that never needs changing or charging 2 . EFC has few down- sides, such as the power generation is relatively low, the mechanism is complicated and fnally, it’s hard to strip an electron from an enzyme than a precious metal 6 . However, the clean energy obtained from EFC is quite perfect to power a biological implant. EFC can prove to be very useful, probably will see them in future with their complete utilization. Te basic requirements for EFC are biocompatibility, long-term stability, integration into biomedical devices and sufcient power output. But the current issues associated with EFCs are their short life span and poor power density. Enzymatic biofuel cell is supposed to have a good ability to power a micro-scale electronic and biomedical devices 2,7–9 . Redox enzymes are the primary catalysts used to generate the power by initiating the redox reaction. For developing EFC, diferent redox anodic enzymes are reported so far: glucose oxidase 10,11 , glucose dehydrogenase 9,12,13 , alcohol dehydrogenase 14,15 , aldehyde dehydrogenase 16 and fructose dehydrogenase 17 whereas bilirubin oxidase 12 , 1 Advanced Functional Materials Laboratory, Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 202002, India. 2 Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, 21589, Saudi Arabia. 3 Centre of Excellence for Advanced Materials Research, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, 21589, Saudi Arabia. 4 King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to I. (email: inamuddin@ redifmail.com) or G.M.A. (email: ashraf.gm@gmail.com) Received: 29 June 2017 Accepted: 18 September 2017 Published: xx xx xxxx OPEN